How long obama in israel

Then there is also the moribund peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Earlier this month, President Obama gave a revealing interview to Israel's Channel 2 television station. It was an opportunity to speak directly to the Israeli public; to try to convince them of his fundamental support for the Jewish state. But he injected a warning note too.

He argued that if the current "status-quo" between Israel and the Palestinians were not resolved, then demographics and the frustration of the Palestinians would force Israel into a choice "about the nature of the Israeli state and its character".

There was a risk, he said, of Israel losing its "essential values". And he went further, warning that there could be more immediate diplomatic consequences too.

If there were no progress towards peace, Mr Obama said, there would be an impact upon "how we approach defending Israel on the international stage round the Palestinian issue". He then followed up with strong hints that the US might not necessarily obstruct any European effort to bring a resolution on the Palestinian problem to the UN Security Council.

So how bad have relations between the two allies become? Aaron David Miller, a former US Middle East negotiator, now at the Wilson Centre in Washington DC, told me that Mr Netanyahu's speech to Congress had "created a rift and opened up the field for a degree of criticism of Israel that, frankly, I have not witnessed before in plus years of working for half a dozen secretaries of state".

He added: "I have never seen it play out the way it has, and that I think is quite damaging. JJ Goldberg, a senior columnist with the Forward and one of the most astute commentators on issues relating to Israel and the US Jewish Community, told me: "It is hard to overstate the depth of suspicion toward the Obama administration within Israeli government circles and among Israel's closest allies in the US.

However, he added: "It doesn't seem to have shaken the underlying feelings of sympathy among governing and leadership circles here toward Israel as a nation and a symbol. He told me: "The continued and significant military support for Israel, despite sharp disagreements between the two principals, results from the fact that while President Obama's understanding and interpretation of Israel's best interests differs sharply from Netanyahu's, the president is genuinely committed to Israel security and survival, and, in that, he reflects the broader support for Israel in American public opinion, in key constituencies, and in the US Congress.

Mr Goldberg said: "The most important fact is that after eight years of George W Bush, with his deeply conservative and essentially Manichaean outlook - an outlook that comforts Israelis' sense of isolation - the two countries simultaneously changed governments in radically different directions.

But there has been another significant shift too. In the process, Israel has, to an extent, become a party political issue in Washington. Obama cited a scheduling conflict.

At the opening news conference Wednesday, both men were demonstrably friendly in exchanging handshakes. Israeli president: No doubt Obama has Israel's back. Netanyahu pressed Obama last year to draw a red line on Iran's expanding nuclear program. Obama indicates he has wiggle room before Iran's nuclear capacity crosses a line, and he is expected to urge Israel to give diplomacy more time. While open to that idea, Netanyahu adds that diplomacy has yet to deter Iran and will press Obama on committing to military options against Iran.

Obama said Wednesday there was still time for a diplomatic resolution to the situation, but added that each country has to make "the awesome decision to engage in any kind of military action" for itself. As Obama began the trip in Israel, he reiterated his warning to Syria's government that it would be held accountable for the use of chemical weapons "or their transfer to terrorists. The warning comes amid allegations by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and rebels that each used chemical weapons in recent fighting.

Doubts expressed over chemical weapons claims in Syria. The president said he was "deeply skeptical" of Syrian government claims that the opposition had used chemical weapons. Obama has previously said Syria's use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line. Expectations are zero that Obama will broker peace between Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who have yet to return to the negotiating table. Indeed, quite the opposite seems to have happened.

Israel is the first and only country in the Middle East to have received the stealth fighter jets. An even more dramatic change occurring during the Obama presidency is that for the first time ever, the United States and Israel cooperated in conducting joint offensive operations. From the U. Such U. One central focus of such cooperation concerned U. These campaigns have been the subject of increasingly intense numerous exchanges between U. It supported Israel in international arenas and did not exert serious pressure on Israel to stop the operations, despite the considerable firepower that Israel employed in these operations and the resulting very heavy civilian casualties.

Indeed, during the operation, the Obama administration agreed to speed up the supply of munitions and spare parts to replace the large quantities of munitions that Israel expanded and the attrition that some of its weapon systems suffered, requiring very large quantities of replacements.

This was reflected in that even when these personal tensions broke all previous records, relations between the U. Benny Ganz. Gadi Eisenkot and U. Joseph Dunford. Throughout the recent U. In determining his support of Israel as president, Trump would be wise to review the record of U. Rather than invite additional disparaging commentary, after he becomes president Trump may find much to admire and emulate in this record.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA Quarterly Journal: International Security. US-Russian Contention in Cyberspace.